In its annual report that Gaza European Hospital has revealed that %20 of the Palestinians, who were shot by the Israeli army during the Great Return March processions in the Gaza Strip in 2018, were children, and more than half of them were shot with life fire.

The report stated that %20 of the wounded were shot by Israeli soldiers in the head, neck or chest, leading to the death of 75 children, and added that %92 of the medical procedures on wounded children were bone and Vascular surgeries.

It also stated that the medical teams in Gaza managed to save many of the wounded from undergoing amputations in their lower limbs, as only 24 amputations were performed.

Raed Abdul-Razeq, the head of the Patients’ Services Department at the hospital, stated that surgeons have performed 1682 surgeries on wounded Palestinians, adding that %58 of the surgeries were orthopedic, %34 were vascular, while the rest were neurological, or in the chest, nose, ears and eyes.

He added that most of the injured children underwent at least two surgeries, due to the seriousness of their wounds.

According to the report, the soldiers shot 1169 Palestinians, including 43 women, while 59 of the wounded were placed in intensive care units, and 567 others were placed in surgery wards.

609 of the wounded Palestinians, including 242 children, were shot with live rounds, while the rest were either injured after being directly shot with Gaza bombs, or by shrapnel, in addition to those who suffered the severe effects of teargas inhalation.

The Israeli army fired, on Friday evening, several missiles and artillery shells into thee sites, east of Gaza city, and east of Khan Younis, causing excessive damage.

The WAFA Palestinian News Agency has reported that the Israeli Air Force fired at least one missile into a site, believed to be run by an armed Palestinian resistance group, causing excessive damage and fire, without leading to casualties.

It added that the army also fired an artillery shell into another site, east of the Sheja’eyya neighborhood, east of Gaza city, causing damage.

In addition, the soldiers fired missiles into an observation post in Khuza’a town, east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

The attacks took place shortly after the Israeli army killed a Palestinian woman, identified as Amal Mustafa Ahmad Taramisi, 43, and injured at least 25 others, during the Great Return March processions, ongoing for the 42nd consecutive week, in the besieged coastal region.

Updated: The Palestinian Health Ministry said the slain Palestinian woman has been identified as Amal Mustafa Abu Sultan, 43, from Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north of Gaza city.

It added that the woman was shot in her head, and died from her serious wounds shortly after she was injured.

Israeli soldiers killed, Friday, one woman, injured fourteen Palestinians, including one medic and a journalist, and caused dozens to suffer the

effects of teargas inhalation, after the army resorted to the excessive use of force against the protesters, participating in the Great Return March procession in the Gaza Strip. videovideo

The attacks against the nonviolent protesters mainly took place near the perimeter fence, east of Gaza city, the al-Boreij refugee camp in central Gaza, in addition to Khan Younis and Rafah, in the southern part, and Jabalia in northern Gaza.

The soldiers, stationed in fortified towers and posts across the perimeter fence, fired many live rounds, rubber-coated steel bullets, high-velocity gas bombs and concussion grenades.

The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said the soldiers shot and killed one woman, east of Gaza city, injured three others before they were moved to the Shifa Medical center, and caused dozens to suffer the effects of teargas inhalation.

Dr. Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesperson of the Health Ministry in Gaza said the slain woman is yet to be officially identified.

He added that the soldiers also shot two Palestinians with live fire, east of Jabalia, suffering moderate wounds, before they were rushed to the Indonesian Hospital in nearby Beit Lahia.

Dr. al-Qedra also stated that the soldiers also fired a high-velocity gas bomb at a Red Crescent ambulance, east of Gaza, wounding several Palestinians, including a medic, identified as Emad Sinwar, with a gas bomb that struck his neck, in addition to one journalist.

One Palestinian was shot with live fire, and many others suffered the effects of teargas inhalation, east of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

A Palestinian fishing boat was set on fire, on Thursday, after Israeli naval forces repeatedly fired towards it off of the coast in the northern besieged Gaza Strip.

Head of the Palestinian Fishermen Union in Gaza, Zakariya Bakr, said that Israeli naval forces opened fire towards Palestinian fishing boats located three nautical miles off of the northern coast of Gaza and ignite a fire in one of them.

Bakr confirmed that two Palestinian fishermen were present on the boat as it caught on fire due to repeated gunfire. He identified them as Mahmoud Hamoud Ishkantana and Muhammad Mahmoud Ishkantana.

The two fishermen were detained by Israeli naval forces and taken to an unknown location.

As part of Israel's blockade of the coastal enclave since 2007, the Israeli army, citing security concerns, requires Palestinian fishermen to work within a limited "designated fishing zone," the exact limits of which are decided by the Israeli authorities and have historically fluctuated.

The Israeli army regularly detains and opens fire on unarmed Palestinian fishermen, shepherds, and farmers along the border areas if they approach the unilaterally declared buffer zone.

Israeli human rights group B'Tselem recently concluded that Israel's Gaza closure and "harassment of fishermen" have been "destroying Gaza's fishing sector," with 95 percent of fishermen living below the poverty line.

A number of human rights organizations have called on Israel to stop spraying dangerous herbicides over the Gaza Strip, as they endanger health and crops in the besieged coastal enclave, a press release by Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel said, on Wednesday.

Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza, Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, and Adalah wrote to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his role as Minister of Defense, Military Advocate General Sharon Afek, and Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit with an urgent demand to refrain from conducting further aerial spraying of herbicides inside and near the Gaza Strip, due to the severe damage to crops and the risk to the health of Gaza residents caused by the spraying.

According to media reports and accounts from Gaza residents, on December 4, the Israeli military sprayed herbicides, from the air, over areas inside the Gaza Strip and near the fence separating it from Israel. A variety of crops grown in fields near the fence inside the Strip were damaged, as a result.

WAFA further reports that, in December of 2015, the military confirmed that it uses planes to spray herbicides near the fence in order to clear terrain.

Farmers and local organizations in the Strip report that spraying has occurred since 2014. In June 2016, Gisha, Adalah and Al Mezan submitted a complaint on behalf of eight farmers from Gaza whose crops had been damaged by spraying, calling on the Israeli authorities to refrain from the practice and compensate the farmers, to no avail.

In the letter submitted on Monday, the organizations emphasize that the spraying is a highly destructive measure, infringing on fundamental human rights and violating both Israeli and international law. Contrary to Israel’s official position, whereby the military only sprays herbicides over Israeli territory, farmers in Gaza report that the planes spray over the Strip’s aerial space.

The letter further notes that even if the spraying were to, in fact, take place only on the Israeli side, the chemical agents used are carried by wind over to the Gaza Strip, causing severe damage to crops and disproportionate financial losses to local farmers, meaning that there is no justification or legal basis for the continued use of this destructive practice.

A response submitted by the Ministry of Defense to a Freedom of Information petition, filed by Gisha in 2016, revealed that the chemical agents used in the spraying include glyphosate (“Roundup”), which had been declared a carcinogen by the World Health Organization and has been banned in many countries around the world. Multiple guidelines on the use of this agent entirely prohibit its use by aerial spraying, due to the high health risks associated with it.

The letter also cites a 2007 Israeli High Court decision against aerial spraying, in a case that challenged the Israel Land Administration’s directive to spray fields cultivated in unrecognized villages of the Naqab (Negev) desert, in the south of the country, on the alleged basis that the residents of the lands did not own them. The court ruled the spraying illegal, due to the risks it posed to the health of people, animals, and vegetation in the area.

The letter concludes with a demand to refrain from all spraying in the Gaza Strip area, and to use other, proportionate measures, within Israeli territory, that do not harm farmers in the Gaza Strip or put their crops or their health at risk.